Shooting at Youtube HQ, 4 injuries, attacker dead

[TexRex]

Gun control advocacy is on the liberal side of the political spectrum.

Agreed.

Gun control advocacy is often misunderstood and misrepresented as violence control advocacy

I think I can get on board with that as well.

The folks who descend into threads like this one to pretend that we can curtail violence by curtailing guns are liberal at least in the respect that they advocate for gun control, and believe themselves to be anti-violence because they conflate gun control with violence control.

Aaaaand you lost me. So people who condemn violence latch onto a liberal initiative (despite not fully understanding it) which makes them liberals and therefor means liberals condemn violence?

 

[Danoff]

Aaaaand you lost me. So people who condemn violence latch onto a liberal initiative (despite not fully understanding it) which makes them liberals and therefor means liberals condemn violence?

No. People who advocate for gun control (liberal) because they think it's violence control are liberals and anti-violence (and confused). If GTPlanet is a good litmus, there are a LOT of those people.

 

[TexRex]

People who advocate for gun control (liberal) because they think it's violence control are liberals and anti-violence (and confused).

So you're asserting that violence control is what's being sought when liberals call for gun control?

 

[Mr Tree]

Jim is a legend!

And yes mostly he's liberal leaning, but this is pretty much qoutemining a comedy piece that deliberatly used the extremes to get laughs out of people

On the actual argument, I'm staying out due to lack of knowledge but I am following the discussion with intrest.

 

[Danoff]

So you're asserting that violence control is what's being sought when liberals call for gun control?

That is often the justification that is given.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

@Danoff

I think there are a lot of gun control advocates who don't really know enough about firearms to craft sound arguments against them. I hear a lot of nebulous terms thrown around like 'military-style' or 'assault-style' rifle, which are pretty difficult to define. I would describe myself as recently left-of-center after previously being right-of-center, for what it's worth. I also happen to own more than a couple firearms. I've previously owned rifles I would describe as 'assault-style' - A nice plum-furnitured Bulgarian '74 and before that a Polish side-folder. I think both sides of the spectrum see things a little too idealistically. For me there isn't so much a fundamental problem, but an issue of calibration. Remember when mobsters were mowing people down with full-auto Thompsons? That was a calibration issue. Fully automatic weapons were made illegal and they largely disappeared outside of specialty dealers and such. When's the last time a full auto rifle was actually used in a crime in the US? How about a suppressed weapon? SBR (this one I still find kind of dumb, to be honest)? To say that regulations are completely ineffectual is just as idealistic to me as the idea of repealing the second amendment.

Do you agree that some things should be regulated? Machine guns? Grenades? Artillery? Tactical ballistic missiles?

 

[Danoff]

@Danoff

I think there are a lot of gun control advocates who don't really know enough about firearms to craft sound arguments against them. I hear a lot of nebulous terms thrown around like 'military-style' or 'assault-style' rifle, which are pretty difficult to define. I would describe myself as recently left-of-center after previously being right-of-center, for what it's worth. I also happen to own more than a couple firearms. I've previously owned rifles I would describe as 'assault-style' - A nice plum-furnitured Bulgarian '74 and before that a Polish side-folder. I think both sides of the spectrum see things a little too idealistically. For me there isn't so much a fundamental problem, but an issue of calibration. Remember when mobsters were mowing people down with full-auto Thompsons? That was a calibration issue. Fully automatic weapons were made illegal and they largely disappeared outside of specialty dealers and such. When's the last time a full auto rifle was actually used in a crime in the US? How about a suppressed weapon? SBR (this one I still find kind of dumb, to be honest)? To say that regulations are completely ineffectual is just as idealistic to me as the idea of repealing the second amendment.

Do you agree that some things should be regulated? Machine guns? Grenades? Artillery? Tactical ballistic missiles?

What you wrote is pretty much my thoughts on the subject as well. I will say that the mobsters were taken down hard by the repeal of prohibition. Prohibition created those mobs (gangs) and gang warfare dropped hard when alcohol was legalized. I think the same thing would be true of other drug legalization today.

Ahnold Gitdownnaauuu! owns a tank, and I have no problem with that. He most likely had to jump through a thousand hoops and become governor of a state before he could own one, but he does, and it hasn't caused a problem. Items can be possible for legal ownership while being so carefully licensed and monitored as to be difficult to use in a crime. I wonder if Arnold has to have his tank submitted for periodic government inspection and re-registration. It wouldn't surprise me. As you point out, it has worked with many types of firearms and explosives. Criminals are balancing easy-to-obtain vs effectiveness when deciding on a gun, and they're landing on semi-automatic rifles with large magazines for mass shootings. Additional regulation makes sense to me. But I don't think it's helpful when people call for bans of any of it.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

What you wrote is pretty much my thoughts on the subject as well. I will say that the mobsters were taken down hard by the repeal of prohibition. Prohibition created those mobs (gangs) and gang warfare dropped hard when alcohol was legalized. I think the same thing would be true of other drug legalization today.

Ahnold Gitdownnaauuu! owns a tank, and I have no problem with that. He most likely had to jump through a thousand hoops and become governor of a state before he could own one, but he does, and it hasn't caused a problem. Items can be possible for legal ownership while being so carefully licensed and monitored as to be difficult to use in a crime. I wonder if Arnold has to have his tank submitted for periodic government inspection and re-registration. It wouldn't surprise me. As you point out, it has worked with many types of firearms and explosives. Criminals are balancing easy-to-obtain vs effectiveness when deciding on a gun, and they're landing on semi-automatic rifles with large magazines for mass shootings. Additional regulation makes sense to me. But I don't think it's helpful when people call for bans of any of it.

Exactly.

Creatively & effectively controlling hi-cap magazines I think could be a huge step to reducing the damage done in mass shootings. I've even thought, and yes I know this seems crazy, but making hi-cap magazines only available through the NRA. NRA members are enthusiasts, not generally the type that go out and shoot up a school or rob a bank. Non-NRA members who are not criminals aren't likely to be enthusiasts, so probably won't be interested in hi-cap magazines (or the weapons that take them) anyways. Non-NRA criminals would find hi-cap magazines difficult to come by without joining the NRA, and the NRA would have a vested interest in making sure their members aren't there to do bad things. For all the venom slinged at the NRA from the gun control advocates, I think they could be actually quite useful in making some regulatory tweaks.